Walter Damrosch, 1862-1950 [biography]

A member of one of America's foremost families of musicians
(often dubbed by scholars as the "Damrosch dynasty"),
Walter Damrosch was the second child and youngest son of Leopold
and Helene Damrosch. The patriarch of this prestigious musical family,
Leopold (1832-1885), was a distinguished composer and conductor who
had served as the lead violinist in the court orchestra at Weimar,
an appointment bestowed on him by Franz Liszt. His eldest son, Frank
(1859-1937), was also a renowned conductor, as well as a music educator.
It was from this talented heritage that Walter Damrosch emerged as
one of America's leading musicians.

Damrosch studied piano and composition in Germany before immigrating
to the United States with his family in 1871. He continued his
musical training under
his father, serving as assistant conductor for his father's all-German
season at the Metropolitan Opera in 1884 and 1885. Damrosch unexpectedly made
his Metropolitan debut on 11 February 1885 conducting Wagner's Tannhäuser after his father was stricken by pneumonia and was unable to perform. After
Leopold's death, Damrosch was hired by the Met as assistant conductor
and assistant manager; he remained on the Met's roster until 1891. In
addition, Damrosch succeeded his father as director of both the Oratorio Society
and New York Symphony Society; for the latter, he remained conductor until
the organization's merger with the New York Philharmonic in 1928.

In 1887, Damrosch traveled to Frankfurt am Main, Germany, to study
conducting under Hans von Bülow, who was then at the height of his career as a pianist
and conductor. Aboard the steamship to Germany, Damrosch met Andrew Carnegie,
whom he later convinced to build Carnegie Hall as a rehearsal and performance
venue for the New York Symphony and Oratorio Societies. Having conducted the
American premiere of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony on 1 February 1890,
Damrosch invited the Russian maestro to New York in honor of the Hall's
opening on 5 May 1891.

On 17 May 1890, Damrosch married Margaret Blaine, daughter of politician
James G. Blaine, then Secretary of State, but also a former presidential
candidate
(he had lost to Grover Cleveland). Among the guests at the highly publicized
wedding were cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, and Benjamin Harrison,
president of the United States. Margaret would bear Damrosch four daughters:
Alice, Margaret (known as Gretchen), Leopoldine, and Anita.

Damrosch's professional achievements included the foundation of the Damrosch
Opera Company in 1894, which became one of the Met's strongest rivals.
The company premiered Damrosch's The Scarlet Letter, an opera based on
the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, in 1896. In addition, Damrosch commissioned
George Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F. With Gershwin as soloist, Damrosch
led the New York Symphony in the work's premiere on 3 December 1925.
Damrosch also conducted the American premiere of Gershwin's An American
in Paris on 13 December 1928. In 1927, Damrosch served as musical consultant
to NBC and produced the "Music Appreciation Hour," a radio series
for schoolchildren that ran from 1928-1942.

Damrosch is recognized as an important figure in American music,
not only as a conductor and educator, but also as a composer. His
setting of "Danny
Deever," from Rudyard Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads, is one of
Damrosch's most famous songs. Damrosch also made significant contributions
to American opera. In fact, along with Samuel Barber and Deems Taylor, Damrosch
is, to date, one of only three American composers to have premiered more than
one opera at the Met: Cyrano de Bergerac in 1913 and The Man without
a Country in 1937. Despite his German origins, Walter Damrosch is credited with the promotion and dissemination of American music.